James Waring See

From Historical and Biographical Sketchs (Cone) R 977.1751 C V.2 CMR From the Lane Public Library Hamilton Ohio.

                                  James W. See
One of the best and most widely known residents of Hamilton, was born in the City of New York May 19, 1850. He was the only child born to the union of George C and Sarah See, who were native residents of New York. His father was by occupation a modeller of architecture and in 1855 he removed from New York to St. Louis, where he engaged in architectural pursuits until 1858 when he removed to Springfield, Missouri, and there resided up until his death which occurred in 1871, at the age of about fifty-two years. He was a man of superior and unusual ability in his profession in which he attained more than a mere local prominence and he served during the Rebellion of a general’s staff with the rank of Captain, and at the close of the war was honorably discharged with the rank of Brevet Major.
In politics he was a Republican and in his religious belief a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. His wife and the mother of the subject of the present sketch died in 1852, when the son was in his early infancy.
The paternal grandfather, Dr. John See, was a prominent physician of New York, where he was born of Dutch descent and where he lived and dies at an advanced age. He achieved a wide reputation in his day as an author of popular and standard medical works.
Earlier ancestors were revolutionary soldiers, honored by the revolutionary soldiers’ monument in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Tarrytown, New York, and still further back they were Huguenots.
Such was the vigorous and sturdy ancestry of James W. See and to which he owes his rare mechanical, intellectual and personal endowments as well as to his inflexible and indomitable force of character and his persevering aspirations and cultivation of his talents.
His life between five and eight years of age was partly spent attending school in Northern New York, afterward for two years in Arcadia, Missouri, and for one year in St Louis. From St. Louis he went to Springfield, Missouri, and at the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861, fired with a patriotic desire and ambition to service his country, he entered the service as fly boy in the general military hospital at Springfield, Missouri.
At the bloody battle of Wilson Creek, where the lamented General Lyon was killed while gallantly leading a charge of the Federal troops, in a spirit of adventure and dauntlessness young See joined in the retreat and by foraging and assisting in the camp cooking he made his way to Rolla, Missouri, where he entered the United States military telegraph service, from which he subsequently graduated as a full fledged operator. He then came north, was student for one year in the Irving Institute at Tarrytown, New York, and from thence he returned to Springfield, Missouri, where he entered the government service as a clerk in the staff department and where he remained until the close of the war.
With a natural bent and genius for mechanical pursuits Mr. See next served for three years as an apprentice at the trade of a machinist in the Springfield, Missouri, Iron Works. It was here that he laid the broad foundation for his future vocations and career and upon the completion of his term of service he was for some years employed as a journeyman in various large shops along a line extending from St. Louis to Yankton, South Dakota, and was also for a part of the time engaged in the Indian Reservation upon government work.
In 1874, he came to Hamilton where he accepted a position in the Niles Tool Works which had located here two years before. Subsequently he became a draughtsman and engineer in the same ships and in 1876 he went into business for himself and opened and office as a general consulting and mechanical engineer. His proficiency in his profession soon brought him a large practice and into connection with some of the largest machine establishments both in the United States and Europe.
In the midst of his active business relations, however, and about the year 1880, he became a contributor through a series of letters to the American Machinist, one of the best standard publications of its kind in the country. These letters were of such fine merit that they speedily gained for their author a wide popularity and familiarized his name and nom de plume of “Chordal” in every machine shop of any magnitude where the English language was known. They were afterward published in book form in part by the house of John Wiley & Sons, New York, under the title of “Extracts from Chordal’s Letters,” and the demand for the book was so great that in the succeeding nine years it reached its ninth edition.
In 1886, after an infinite amount of labor and research and the most careful and exhaustive preparation, Mr. See published a digest of United States patents on electrical underground lines and conduits, in two volumes, one of the magnitude of three hundred and forty pages, retailing at $10 and the other of about one thousand pages and selling at $50 per volume.
With the patenting of the telephone, Mr. See also became greatly interested in the practical working of this great device and he invented several valuable appliances connected with central office apparatus and attachments. In recognition of his work he was elected and honorary member of the Telephone Exchange Association and was also for a time editor of the Telephone Exchange Reporter, a journal devoted to telephone interests.
Impressed with the manifest deficiencies in the prevailing systems of keeping documents in municipal and other archives, in 1887 he devised and perfected a system of his own on entirely and radically new lines, whereby the records and documents became thoroughly systematized and intelligently indexed and classified, the system has been largely adopted by many municipalities, corporations and individuals and business firms, and it was employed as a means by which the complicated works of the Ohio Legislature was made accessible to a greater degree than ever before.
As his business developed and expanded, Mr. See by degrees drifted into the profession of a patent attorney and his services became especially prominent as an expert witness in testimony in litigation involving patents and mechanical apparatus. He now devoted his principal attention to his profession he is recognized as one of the best experts in the United States to-day. His services are very widely in demand and he controls a large and lucrative clientage.
Notwithstanding his busy life in a professional capacity, however, he has always taken a prominent and foremost interest in public affairs in municipal reforms and has ever stood for the best growth, development and advancement of the city. For a considerable period he was a regular attendant upon the deliberations of the city fathers: was for a time a member of the city board of school examiners, but he never entertained any political aspirations and never sought or held an elective office.
By appointment of ex-Governor James E. Campbell in 1892, he acted as one of the World’s Fair Commissioners for Ohio and he served most actively and efficiently on the board of throughout that great and historical exposition. He as one of the most active and influential members of the former board of trade of Hamilton, and is now a charter member of the newly organized Hamilton Commercial club.
Mr. See was united in marriage June 1, 1881, to Miss Hester R. Rose, daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Hibben) Rose, of Forrestville, Ohio, and who was for several years a most capable teacher in the Hamilton public schools. Five children have blessed this marriage, Corliss, Robert, Howard, Willard and Florence.
Mr. See is a stockholder in a number of local enterprises, is a charter member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is also a member of the Union League Club, and Technical Club of Chicago, and he is in every respect a solid, substantial and progressive citizen.